Dental Tribune United Kingdom Edition

E arlier this year, two fourth year Glasgow University dental students, Richard Field and Charlotte Payne, un- dertook a humanitarian elec- tive to aid the orphaned children of Phnom Penh. As you may be aware, Cambodia is a country very much in transition that is struggling to overcome the mem- ory of the Khmer Rouge and its genocide more than 30 years ago. Richard and Charlotte worked with the charity Cam- bodia World Family which is a small NGO with the mission of providing free dental care for the orphaned, handicapped and abandoned children of Phnom Penh. The project had six key goals: 1. To gain experience of training and managing Cambodian staff 2. Treating the disadvantaged children that were sent from 82 institutions to the clinic 3. To perform dentistry to the best of their ability for up to 20 children per day 4. To help teach the staff and Khmer students from the local university 5. To improve administrative sys- tems and infection control 6. To maintain and improve chil- dren’s facilities Richard was surprised at how well the centre was run when they arrived. “Whilst many of the practices would not have been satisfactory ac- cording to UK standards, staff were working with what they had. We felt that for us to demonstrate ‘better’ practices would have confused some of the staff to the detriment of pa- tients. We found that we worked with the staff as part of the team rather than in a managerial capacity.” As well as working at CWF, Richard and Charlotte also vol- unteered at Toutes A L’Ecole – a French run school that take girls from underprivileged families in Phnom Penh. They provide them with a full education using the in- ternational French Baccalaureate syllabus. One interesting point that both students noted was that the children they interacted with at this school, who were from slightly better circumstances, had teeth in a much poorer state. This was due to the fact that they had a small amount of pocket money that was generally spent on sweets. Plus ça change! An oral hygiene program was sug- gested to a French school whose pupils were particularly affected and the administrator gave per- mission to Richard to run oral hygiene classes. Richard explained that, “the English teacher acted as my translator and my intention was that if he saw my instruction several times, he would be able to continue the classes after we left. I tried to make the classes as interactive as possible so that the kids would better retain the information. Interestingly, when asked, ‘Which foods are bad for teeth?’, the answers were hot, cold and hard foods. The chil- dren associated any food which gave them pain, as bad for their teeth. Through further discus- sion, we did arrive at the answer ‘those that contain sugar’. A popu- lar drink in the region is sugar cane juice and the children were shocked when I explained the harm that such drinks can do.” Lessons then continued with an oversized mouth mod- el and toothbrush illustrating the proper way to brush. The English teacher confirmed that all first year children would now have oral health instruction class- es. As it transpired, goals 4,5 and 6 proved to be difficult to meet. Richard commented, “the dental school is large but very poorly equipped. There were only five articulators available for the whole school and we didn’t have an opportunity to teach. In re- gard to infection control, the team followed good practice in hand washing and changing gloves between patients. We did iden- tify some areas for improve- ment such as using fresh tips on the etch and fissure sealant for each patients but staff pointed out they only changed tips when they broke as they didn’t have sufficient tips. While we weren’t comfortable with this, we did en- sure that tips were wiped with disinfectant between patients. The waiting area for the children already had a DVD and selection of toys and as a consequence we didn’t feel we could add to this.” Richard and Charlotte ob- viously expected that people’s knowledge and attitude towards dental hygiene would be very different in Cambodia than the UK. What they did not ex- pect was the children’s willing- ness to accept dental treatment with no fuss. They found this to be (in the main) in complete contrast to their experience of children in Glasgow! Perhaps they were more aware in Cam- bodia that dentists were there to help them? Richard feels that the whole experience has benefitted both he and Charlotte, not just as dentists but also as people. It allowed them to appreciate the facilities that we all take for granted in our clinical environment. Last word to Rich- ard - “A national health service can play such an important part in a population’s health and if there were one in Cambodia, it may speed the country’s road to re- covery. However, it has also illus- trated to me that a population can take a health service for granted when one is freely available ie the UK.” DT If you would like to support the work of CWF then you can find more information or donate at: http://www.cambodiaworld- family.com/ For the French school you can donate online at http://www. toutes-a-l-ecole.org/CarteB.html or by cheque addressed to ‘Toutes à l’école’ and posted to : Toutes à l’école 150 boulevard du Général de Gaulle 92380 Garches Going to see family... in Cambodia ‘Children at the orphanages testing out their new toothbrushes’ Chris Baker from Corona Design & Communication reports on two dental students’ humanitarian elective... ‘Trimming casts with a meat cleaver also used to prepare food. ‘Younger children being given a helping hand by the staff’ ‘Whilst many of the practices would not have been satisfac- tory according to UK standards, staff were working with what they had’ 29FeatureJanuary 24-30, 2011United Kingdom Edition